Desire of the Gladiator (Affairs of the Arena Book 3) Read online

  It was a stupid, base feeling, she knew. But there was something inescapable about the arousal she felt when watching a man—her man—beat another in the arena. In that moment, he was the best in the city, maybe the best in the world. And it drove her wild to know that at any moment she liked, she could have this invincible warrior unleash everything he had on her.

  And—she thought, with some great relish—inside of her.

  Other women would no doubt want the spot. Prettier women. Silly strumpets with too much make-up and plenty of fine words for a victorious gladiator. Great fires of jealousy blazed in her mind at the thought, and so did the inescapable conclusion that she had to lock him down for herself with great permanence.

  But she could not go to see him.

  No, she was stuck in the box seats with the senators and the lanistas until the rank and file of the crowd emptied out into the streets and back into their homes. Or, more likely, their taverns where they would have a week’s worth of wine in a night. Already, heavily armed guardsmen prepared the roads for the nobles to make their way home unimpeded by the drunken ramblings and rages of the mob.

  The lanistas all shook the hand of the governor in turn, thanking him for the privilege of having their gladiators fight in his games. The governor smiled at each with grace—taking extra indulgence in the lanistas of House Malleola and House Vibius.

  “We do thank you for your mercy, Governor,” said Julius Calcus Malleola.

  “Of course, Julius. Of course. Your Felix has a great many fights still left in him, I expect. And you, Titus. Your Set will no doubt need medical attention, yes? I think we ought to hire the best medicae in the city to get the job done. You’re so far from Capua. He’ll need rest before the journey back. That was a terrible wound in his side.”

  “It’s already done, Governor. But thank you. We contacted the medici weeks ago.”

  “Did you?” Trio gave a shrug, corpulent shoulders sliding like mountains in water. “Wonderful.”

  But something about the way he looked made it seem as though he was already very well aware of that. He was a man who loved his excesses, the governor, but he seemed perfectly aware of his surroundings and his influences. It occurred to Leda that he wouldn’t have made it as a governor in Puteoli if he was a drunken, obese dimwit.

  Somehow, that he was a drunken, obese mastermind made him rather scary.

  The other guests left, and Leda’s hopes rose that she would be able to run and wrap her arms around Conall—but the governor placed a hand on Publius and kept him in the room.

  “A word.”

  Publius nodded, and they waited until the guests had passed through the doorway. In the interval, Publius turned to Leda.

  “Have this,” he said. “I’m tired of keeping it on my person. You haven’t tried to steal it once.”

  It was the letter he had kept from her.

  “You expected me to steal it, Dominus?”

  His mouth twitched. “Most slaves would have. You have integrity. I respect that.”

  Leda did not know what to say to that. She cracked the seal on the scroll—still intact. Publius had his own integrity. She held it open, but did not read—Publius caught her hands, indicating for her to wait. The room was empty and it was just Leda, Publius, the governor, and his own slaves.

  “This has been a rousing success, I would say.”

  “I agree, Governor.”

  “Good. That means you were paying attention. But how closely, I wonder? This was one step of many for me.”

  Trio turned a seat slightly and sat down again. The cushion beneath his wide behind sagged heavily.

  “I don’t know that I follow,” said Publius, “but I should like to, if you lead me along.”

  “I want more for myself,” said Trio. “And more for this city. Rome is changing. Ever-changing. How many emperors have we had that did not even make their homes there? How many that were not even born in Italy?”

  “Quite a few, Governor.”

  “Rome’s star is fading. Believe you me, it is going down. Not the empire. Just the city.”

  “I see.”

  “Now.” The governor leaned forward. “Rome is holy, and I’ve no wish nor intent to claim otherwise. But Puteoli is a fine city. An honorable city, with a long history of doing what needs doing for the whole of this Empire. I want recognition for our work.”

  “It would be well-deserved, Governor, especially given how much you have done for the place.”

  “Thank you.” Trio nodded amiably. “But I was not fishing for compliments. I want to take a fighter from this city and send him to Rome. And I want him to fight in the most spectacular fight imaginable. I want him to fight their Titan, and I want him to win.”

  Publius raised his eyebrows and let out a small breath. “That is quite the want, Governor.”

  The Titan? That was the monster that Conall referenced. The unbeatable one. The one that he so desperately wanted to face. Her pulse elevated quickly. She forgot about the scroll in her hands.

  “And I want that fighter to be from your ludus. You have provided me with show after show, excellence after excellence. I am tired of being outdone by Rome. If we beat them in the arena, we shall see how many of their fine nobles suddenly want to come visit Puteoli. They’ll want fine things, and so the purveyors of fine goods will set up shops here. Their money will go into the market, and so on and on. We will all be rich. And I will make you as rich as I can. But I need a win in the Colosseum, Publius. I need you to give it to me. It’s what I want. It’s what this city needs.”

  “Do you have a preference in the choice of fighters, Governor?”

  “Your Pertinax performed admirably today, of course. I expect word of him will spread like wildfire. But you know your men, and you can choose best.”

  Publius’s face was inscrutable. “Thank you, Governor. I will send word to you in a day’s time with my decisions.”

  Her thrill for Conall’s victory felt small and hollow now. There would always be one more fight for him, she realized suddenly. That was the life of a gladiator. This thrill, this great adrenaline of winning, would always be balanced out by another life-threatening combat down the road.

  She had to do her honest best to ensure that Conall never heard a single word of this conversation.

  “I have a name in mind, Governor” said a voice from the hall.

  Leda’s stomach dropped as Conall entered the room.

  Chapter 38

  Directly after the fight, Conall had entered the underbelly of the arena to great cheers from the other gladiators in the ludus. They clapped him on the back and shook him heartily, congratulating him on the win.

  Some of the comments he got were a little insulting.

  “I wasn’t convinced at first, but you really took it to them!”

  “By the gods, I knew you’d die. You cost me fifty sestertii. But I’m glad you won!”

  Thankfully, not too many of them were like that. Mostly it was men telling him what a good show he’d put on. That they were thrilled to have another Champion back in their ludus. And they should be, Conall knew, because it meant a bigger payday for all of them come time to fight again.

  Diocles was in a corner, sulking. Conall made a mental note to rub the victory in his face at a later time.

  But right then, what he wanted more than anything was to wrap his arms around Leda. And so he rushed up to the box—the guards knew him now, and would no more stand in the way of a gladiator fresh from such a victory than they would a ball of fire—to take his princess and kiss her until the sun came up.

  And maybe more than that. His blood was up from the victory. While his manhood was not hard, he could definitely tell the switch was turned in his brain—he was ready for her in a way that he had never felt before, not even after long minutes of touching, petting, and kissing.

  His hope was perhaps to catch her in the box and spend precious minutes alone with her. Hanging just outside the door, though, he ove
rheard everything Publius and the governor spoke of.

  As he entered the room fully, he paid no mind to Publius’s barely-concealed scowl.

  “You saw the display I put out there, Dominus” said Conall. “Put me in the match. I can win it.”

  “Gladiator.” Publius’s back straightened. “I see you are once again flagrantly disregarding the rules of conduct for a slave.’

  “Yes, Dominus. Breaking tradition is the word of the day. Or did you not just witness me beating two men in a primus?”

  Trio chortled. “He has a point, Publius.”

  Publius cranked his neck to one shoulder and then the other. Loud bony pops filled the box. “Governor, I respect your opinion a great deal. However, I would like to talk to you about a few other matters, privately…”

  He put an arm around the Trio’s heavy back, guiding him past Conall.

  Publius stopped for a moment, turning back. “Do not miss the wagon train. All property must be back in the ludus at the same time.”

  Conall’s throat burned with words—but Leda was making strange sounds in the corner. He’d forgotten about her, almost, in his rush to be put into the Colosseum against the Titan. How often was it that two dreams were in the same room?

  Leda was reading something. She was reading and she was trembling. Conall forgot about his protests and went to her.

  “What is it?”

  She handed him the scroll. He could read, but it was written in some language he did not know.

  “What does it say?” he asked. He could make out nothing. “It’s short.”

  “Gaiane was always a fan of brevity.” She smiled. “We made a code when we were young. You wouldn’t be able to read it even if you knew our language. It’s a simple code. Not enough to stop someone smart, but it worked well enough, I suppose.

  She held it up, tracing her fingers along the words for him. “Father under sway of counselors. Assassins sent for you. Stop letters for Taniel. Trying to help.”

  Chapter 39

  Vahram stewed in an inn for weeks after the attempt on Princess Leda. For the first several days, he got drunk and tried to shrug it off. But there was nothing doing. He had to fix it.

  Somehow, he had to come up with a new plan. He sat on his bed with wine jostling at his side, rolling a coin in his hands this way and that.

  He cursed the Gods high and low for the failure to take the girl on the streets.

  It had been going well. Another thirty seconds and her throat would have been slit, her dying body covered by a sheet.

  And then that gladiator had to act so damned noble. Who knew a gladiator had morals—would want to defend a woman with his very life? They were killing machines. What mattered to them one more corpse on the streets of Puteoli?

  Nonsense. It was all nonsense.

  Occasionally the innkeep wandered into his room and asked how long he would be. Vahram merely took out another bar of silver and told the man to shut his mouth. Vahram would leave when he left.

  The room was dirty and small. Often, like most inns, it would have been used for several people at a time. It was only by Vahram’s high rate of pay that he kept it to himself. A girl downstairs offered herself to him several times, clearly hoping for silver bars of her own. He took advantage, and even paid her, though he had not enjoyed the experience.

  Everything about this town, about himself, stunk of his failure. Even sex could not be enjoyed under the shadow of that disappointment.

  He knew the girl had family in Armenia who wanted her dead—they had, indirectly, hired him. He wasn’t supposed to know she was a princess, or that she was connected so high-up.

  It was a good thing he did know. Vahram sat on a fortune from his thefts over his travels. Enough to buy a plot of land and then some. He hoped to use it to retire. The life of an assassin was a good trade—even an honorable trade in his mind—but it was also a dangerous one. He had no thoughts of ranching or farming. There was enough money in his chest to come up with another idea for earning his way through life. But after he had the land.

  Not that these dreams mattered. Supposing he did buy some plot and abandon the attempt on the princess, he would have been dead inside of a year. Royal families did not take kindly to being ignored, in his experience.

  So, he had to come up with a solution. He wondered how much the girl knew about her family. She must have been scared all the time. Former royalty living as a slave in a school for gladiators. It was hard to imagine a rougher life.

  He tossed the coin in his hand across the room. It landed in the chest in the corner, dinging sharply against the other collected precious metals there. There was enough there to buy almost anything.

  And slowly, a plan began to formulate in his head.

  Chapter 40

  Time passed quicker than Conall would have liked, and with not enough surety in the meantime. Two and a half weeks, in fact—eighteen entire days where he felt no relief for the seemingly bottomless reserve of stress grasping at his heart.

  Training began anew. The day after any period of games—so long as the fighters were victorious—was reserved for celebration. And the celebration was vast—for gladiators stuck in a ludus, anyway.

  Conall’s grand day of celebration directly after the primus, in which the gladiators sang him songs and toasted their every last drink to him, felt strangely empty without having Leda at his side. Many toasts were offered up to Conall’s name, and he offered back many more. But it was hollow without her. He took solace in the notion that soon she would be able to return to him and they could capitalize on the moment of his victory, that the work she had keeping her busy would pass quickly.

  It did not.

  Conall’s mind was in a hundred different places as training began again. He knew that all he should be thinking of—the only thing that he could think of—was at least three different things.

  Such a contradiction in terms was not lost on him.

  The first, obviously, was who was trying to kill his princess? How could he stop them? How could he kill them first so that they would never try again, and in a bloody enough way to send a message that would stop anyone else from ever lifting a finger against her?

  He had wanted to discuss the matter with Leda, but the victories in the games required many eyes on many scrolls for fulfillment of contracts, and for that, Leda was needed. He thought only for a day or two, but then a week passed, and then another…and then another.

  At nights, he still saw her, of course. But she was always wiped out from the day, her hands blackened with ink and her eyes barely able to stay open.

  Payment for supplying gladiators to the Colosseum was great indeed. There were other slaves Publius could hire now that he collected such large fees. Conall got the feeling that he was punishing Conall by overworking Leda. There was no way to prove it, but if there was a manner in which Publius could be petty, Conall thought it likely the man would do so by over-assigning duties.

  The one comfort he took was that at least the assassin, whoever it was, would not likely try to invade a ludus to gather his prize. That was tantamount to suicide.

  In the ludus, at least in the cell block, Conall began to receive a wealth of respect from men that had never before even bothered to say his full name. They would call him “little one” or “the wild German.” Now they could not stop saying his name—could not stop attributing Conall’s success to the one time he knocked this man down in training, or outpaced that man during laps, and so on.

  It was a strange thing, being valued. He did not altogether trust it.

  And so the second thing on his mind was the upcoming games. Would he fight the Titan? Would his dream of completion come true? Was this a dream even worthy of having?

  That last question bothered him to his core. All he had wanted, upon becoming a gladiator, was to be in the primus.

  And yet, as soon as that was done, a new goal had cropped up in its place.

  Would that sort of replacement ever st
op for a man like Conall? He did not know.

  He did not know any men like himself.

  And the third thing on his mind during this endless flux of not knowing and guessing—quite clearly the only thing he could think of, just like the other two—was when he would hold Leda again. When he would hold her, kiss her, tell her he loved her dearly and would never be able to live a long life without her at his side.

  On the nineteenth day, Conall woke up and immediately felt the apprehension hit him, grappling with the hard-earned calm from an uneasy night of sleep. Leda had stayed with him only for an hour before returning to the house up the hill. They had barely said two words to one another.

  He worried that the chance to tell her of his affection simply wouldn’t come. Having a conversation like that when she was clearly exhausted was unfair. And yet all he wanted to do was take her underneath him and treat her to a long night of rough, furious, lustful attentions.

  The games in Rome were in just a few days’ time. The man who would fight in the primus—be it Conall or someone else at the House Varinius ludus, or a man from another ludus entirely—still had not been decided.

  His body had healed completely from the fight against Felix and Set. As such, he felt limber and loose as he stepped out onto the sands just before dawn. Training for Conall started with laps, as it always did.

  Some few other gladiators had woken with him to run as he did. This had become something of the new normal. They waited for him to begin before they followed, taking his same path, knocking their fists at the wall in the same spots as he.

  Soon the other gladiators filed out, and the doctores readied for drills. But before the fighters could step to work, Murus had them gather in front of the steps. Soon after, Publius descended from his house to look at his gathered fighters.

  This is it, thought Conall. Finally. Finally I’ll know.

  “In a manner of days, our ludus will be honored again with the murus in honor of the victory of Emperor Severus’s campaigns in the East. These are to be the greatest games this ludus has ever had fortune to attend, and our first visit to Rome in over ten years. Only the best of us will be fighting, and even those best will have to perform far beyond their mortal standings. The Colosseum is a place for immortals. For Gods. Any fighter who is honored with its sands must stand far above the rest.”